Fall Brings Changes

Fall Brings Changes

Many people begin the new year with new and fresh thoughts. It is an obvious new beginning. You wipe away the old as the year fades into oblivion and you promise yourself a great new future, as if you are cradling a new baby and see infinite possibilities.  It makes perfect sense to project life and new beginnings in this manner and time of year.

My changes always seem to take place in the fall. The leaves on tress begin to dance with color and I hear them beckoning me out into the world.  Paint me; take a walk, snuggle with a book, or just gaze out the window and think of the winter sliding into your life.  I love the first frost of winter and how the sun can peak out and create a glaze on the earth as if it has been sprinkled with fairy dust. Life has led me in a different direction these days,  and so I rarely build a snow man or toss a snowball, or slide around on icy sidewalks.  In winter you will see me walking among  Palm Trees as I gaze at stars on a sidewalk. Palm Springs and its myriad of happy hours, golfing and plein air painting has now become my winter playground.  Nonetheless my changes are just as relevant as my snowy winters skating on snow in the Northwest.   My snowing nights and visions of snow on the butte have turned into sunsets over the San Jacinto Mountains that literally take your breath away.  Just when you think you have seen the most magnificent sunset in the world, you are gifted with yet another the very next night.  How could you not be inspired?  Each winter in each place is a gift, and as an artist they stir that creative bubble lurking just below the service.

What I have learned is that life is never stagnant.  I have a friend that likes to say, "if you want to make God laugh, make a plan!"  How often do I hear the lament , "if only"; if only we had taken that dream trip; if only I had said I loved you more ; if only I had been kind; if only we had not let life slip through our fingers?   If you have read my different blogs over the years, then you have journeyed with me on this rigorous path of laments, grief, sadness, joy, adventure and new beginnings, always, always new beginnings. Art has sustained me through it all. It has enveloped me in its arms and given me strength

and great joy. I am so thankful to look at life through this lens. 

Recently I found a new path and so I begin fall with great hope and expectations.  As I weave my way around critical aspects of daily life, I will be ingesting a heavy dose of discipline to be more creative: paint and write and learn to have fun again.  Oh, I know, if you follow my social media, it all looks like fun, but that is only the character that appears on those pages.  Inside is a ghost that is looking at life stream by at a steady pace and needs to slam on the brakes and smell that proverbial rose. 

I will try to keep myself honest and , if you know me, help me on this new path.  Call me out. Ask me if I have painted are written a word lately. Sometimes we need a captain to guide us through the fog. 

As I said no to many things,, I am saying yes to me. 

Hope along on the ride.  I need all the help I can get.